LONDON^259onialism as inevitable since capitalism had to encompass the whole world
before it could be overthrown. Like industrialisation in the West, it was
both progressive and immensely destructive. He wrote: 'Britain has to
fulfil a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating -
the annihilation of old Asiatic Society, and the laying of the material
loundation of Western Society in Asia.'^209 This was particularly so since,
111 Marx's view, Asia had no history of its own. The reason for this lay in
11 mode of production different to that of the West:^210 the necessity of
providing vast public works to achieve satisfactory irrigation had led to a
highly centralised government built on a substructure of self-contained
villages and the entire absence of private property in land. The only
changes brought about in India were those caused by invaders, the most
recent and fundamental changes being those wrought by British capital,
and these, although of no benefit to Britain, would bring India under the
general laws of capitalist development.^211
NOTES1. Marx to Freiligrath, MEW XXVII 512.
i. This would have to be multiplied by at least a hundred to get present-day
sterling equivalents.
3. Jenny Marx, 'Short Sketch of an Eventful Life', Reminiscences, p. 225.
4. Jenny Marx to Weydemeyer, Reminiscences, pp. 237 f.
5. Jenny Marx, 'Short Sketch of an Eventful Life', Reminiscences, p. 226.
6. Marx to Engels, MEW XXVII 55.
7. See above pp. 150 ff.
8. See above pp. 179 ff.
9. W. Liebknecht, Karl Marx, Biographical Memoirs (Chicago, 1901 ) p. 69.
10. Quoted in R. Payne, Karl Marx (London, 1968 ) p. 235.
11. Deutsches Zentral-Archiv, quoted in K. Obermann, Zur Geschichte des Bundes
der Kommunisten 1849-52 (Berlin, 1955 ) pp. 66 ff.
12. L. Briigel, 'Aus den Londoner Fliichdingstagen von Karl Marx', Der Kampf,
xvn (1924).
13. See the bills submitted to the Home Office referred to in A. Schoyen, The
Chartist Challenge, p. 230.
14. See below pp. 213 ff.
15. K. Marx, 'Herr Vogt', MEW xiv 440.- MEW VIII 414.
- W. Blumenberg, 'Zur Geschichte des Kommunistenbundes', International
Review of Social History (1964) p. 91.
.8. MESW 1 hi.